Crimson
by Kishofwings
Summary: Vincent Valentine is a halfbreed who lives in a world of solitude and everywhere he goes, he always seems to run into someone from either of his lineages who hate him. A new take on a classic hero.


**Crimson**

**Chapter 1: Two-Edged**

The full moon. It looked sacred and pure against the sinisterly black sky, but even something as holy as the moon had its dark side. He didn't understand why everything seemed to have some form of evil deep within, but then again, he didn't want to. He had more pressing concerns to attend to, rather that comparing himself to some lifeless object like the moon. He gazed out across the dim horizon that was hazed by the pollution of Midgard City, Sector 7, looking for his future, which seemed to be waning with every second.

His name was Vincent Valentine. With the physique of a warrior and skill that was unparalleled, he was a formidable enemy. His long raven-black hair hung loose around a pale handsome face, a strong yet solemn face that was crowned by a pair of blood-red eyes. It was a gaze from those crimson eyes that sent most of his enemies to the bowels of the afterlife.

Suddenly, a gust of wind struck him across his back, nearly forcing him off the little landing he stood on. Vincent whipped around, pulling out a pair of gunmetal black magnums from the depths of his black cloak. But he faced no one. Or at least he thought he hadn't.

Appearing in the middle of a small squall of wind, a beautifully sculpted woman appeared flying before him with a pair of large black scaly wings with dangerously sharp talons on each spiny tip. She wore a skimpy black leather outfit that clung close to her body but managed to reveal almost every bit of her porcelain-white skin. Dangling around her tiny waist on a thick metal spiked belt were a pair of sai and a solid black shotgun.

With her very erotic appearance, she would have seduced any man in a mere second. But Vincent was no impressed by the intimidating woman and merely gazed at her with the intent and severity as one would use on an insignificant insect.

"Hello there handsome," she growled in a very feminine purr through a perfect white smile that displayed extended, and keenly sharp canine teeth.

"Are you Val Kyrie, the infamous bounty hunter?" Vincent asked, not once showing emotion on his face or with his body movements to the woman's definite attempts at trying to catch him off guard with her dark magic.

"Yes," she hissed, sexily, flying closer to him and leaned over his broad shoulder to whisper in a slight hot growl in his ear. "And I'm after one delectable half-breed dish by the name of Vincent Valentine." Vincent suddenly felt the cold razor-thin edge of a blade against his throat. He watched her expressions turn from hot to triumphant.

Vincent reacted quickly, executing a powerful roundhouse that sent the woman spiraling out of control, leaving her defenseless for a few moments. Those few moments were all he needed. He shut his eyes and pulled out his hands clapping them together in front of him. He then began chanting a spell that was woven from ancient languages like Sanskrit and Latin and then a few languages never heard of. After he finished chanting, he opened his eyes slowly. Time had slowed down to almost a complete halt; the only indication of the passage of time was the woman's slow movement, millimeter by millimeter, toward him, her black talons atop her wings pointing dangerously at him and a few bullets spiraling slowly in his direction.

His dark magic spell made his body and mind go at such a high speed that made the world around him seem to slow. Vincent, not wasting any of his precious time, shot his twin magnums, hitting the enemy's bullets off course, and then aimed for her heart. After he had shot the bullets, he was back at normal speed.

For a second, the woman's face was leering at him as if she had won the battle. The next, she was writhing with pain on the top of the building, a bullet wound to the chest.

"You bastard!" she screamed in anguish, her hands trying to stem the flow of blood from her heart as a steady stream of silver from the bullet flooded her veins.

Vincent gazed at her with a look of mild interest.

"If you demons think you can kill me with such low skill and power, you and the rest of your wretched hunters are sorely mistaken."

With that, he turned away from the woman, placing his magnums in their respective locations on his belt. The woman had stopped moving for a second. And then, with a sudden gust of wind, her body evaporated into a thin mist and was gone in the night air.

He wasn't shocked by the death of the demon or by the fact that she had vanished. All demons vanished when their heart was pierced with silver. However, a demi-demon, one who was born from both demon and human parents, would not vanish when struck through the heart with silver; they would instead suffer a pain beyond mortal pain, a pain that would shock even the most stable of minds into insanity. Vincent knew of these pains and still bore the ever painful scars.

That day was forever burned in his memory. She was a young woman who married man she had fallen in love with when she was only 21. But after a year of blissful marriage, she had found out he was a demon. She ran away from him, even though she still had feelings for him and cursed those feelings. But it was too late; she was carrying his child, the child of a demon.

He was born in a little town called Nibelheim. He appeared to be a normal human boy with his mother's shocking blue eyes, pale blond hair, and a beautiful angelic face. He would tan a rich gold from working strenuously with his mother in their acres of wheat and corn fields. At that time, his mother had thought that perhaps this child was a human and not a demon. But that hope she had disappeared when the boy turned 7, the supposedly "lucky" number. Suddenly in the span of a few days, his pale blond hair begin to grow into a dark black color as if someone had dumped a jar of black ink on top of his head, spreading from his roots to tips. His eyes were inked from the perfectly clear cerulean to a dark crimson. And his skin no longer would tan no matter how long and hard he worked in the sun; he maintained a pale ivory complexion.

He didn't understand why he transforming but to his mother's horror, she did. She knew, and her strict Christian beliefs wouldn't permit her to keep a demon child. One night, when he had almost drifted off into a deep slumber after a tiring day of working in the fields without his mother again, he heard the door of his room creak open on its rusty hinges, and felt a malevolent yet frightened aura wash over him. He snapped open his eyes to find his mother's twisted face leering down at him, her eyes swimming with tears while her face was contorted with insanity. Without warning, he felt the cold, lifeless silver blade bury itself deep into his chest, his heart rupturing, seemingly tearing his soul right out of his body. His emotions numbed and faded off into a dark corner of his mind along with his love for his mother. She smiled ruefully down at him, and he felt his mind leave him as the pain suddenly flashed in his mind again. When he came back to his senses, he found his mother's body, bloodied and mangled, at his feet and his stained with her blood.

After that incident, Vincent had run away from his town before anyone had caught him and fled to the city of Midgard, living off pitiful meals and the little money he earned from pick pocketing. No one seemed to notice his dark little existence, probably because he so resembled a demon but still looked like a human at the same time. This led to quite a few fights from racists and drunken thugs. In one of these random city brawls, he recognized the new strength and powers he had received and began teaching himself how to call upon his powers with a few murmured words and hand gestures and fight. Then he had heard of the possible profession of becoming a bounty hunter, and he readily took the job. It was a perfect job for someone who was not wanted, and outcast. It was perfect for someone who would have no mourners at their own funeral.

Vincent gazed again at the moon. Demons were the source of evil to humans, the epitome of what they termed as "devils", "monsters", or even "vampires". But like humans, there were some good demons and some bad. He wasn't bad demi-demon, but he couldn't say he was a good one either.. He knew that the liquid-silver embedded in his diamond-tipped bullets would kill the woman when it pierced her heart, but he shot her anyways. She was a bad demon; a demon out to take a life for a mere price, for some fleeting gain in wealth. Vincent would never kill anyone who did not deserve to die. Not like what he did to his mother. She had attempted to kill him because he was a child of a demon and a human. She was doing the world a favor.

Vincent woke up from his deep thoughts and gazed again at the beautiful yet cursed city of Midgard. Though no one dared approach him due to his intimidating and somewhat creepy outward appearance, Vincent didn't mind the solitude but in fact relished in it. Vincent took a deep breath, feeling a slight breeze play with his hair and stretch the silky stuff into long tendrils that blended with the night sky.

With no warning, Vincent leaped off the building and after a few breathtaking moments of freefall, he flexed open a pair of large black wings, jerking him into a different velocity. As he flew, his wings surrounded him like a wall of darkness and gloom; but in the middle of the thick glossy black feather stood a few feathers a soft and holy white.

* * *

**I loved the title "Crimson" but I didn't like my initial story (sorry itachi fangirl, anony, and Lord Makura...hopefully you'll like my new version) I always wanted to write a story about the enigmatic Vincet, who's side story in the game and movie as well as his main plot in Digre of Cerebrus, always intrigued me. But I didn't want to write a story that followed FF7 and the movie and DoC until after I replayed the games and rewatched the movie, which at the present time, is out of the question with my insane amount of school work. I plan on writing more to this story but I'm not sure if I want this story to involve either another character from the FF series as the heroine, or a made-up character. if you got any ideas, please contact me. I hope you liked it! Thanks for reading and please review!**

**-Kish**


End file.
